Former Peruvian President Toledo sentenced to 20 years in prison for bribery | Wilnesh News

Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo was sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison on Monday for accepting bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

The verdict marks Peru’s first high-profile conviction in Brazil’s transcontinental “Car Wash” corruption scandal.

Toledo is a 78-year-old economist with a PhD from Stanford University who ruled the Andean country from 2001 to 2006.

According to prosecutors, he was convicted of accepting $35 million in bribes from the company formerly known as Odebrecht in exchange for the company winning a contract to build a road connecting Peru’s southern coast to Brazil’s western Amazon region.

Toledo denied money laundering and conspiracy charges during a year-long trial.

Odebrecht, now known as Novonor, was at the center of Latin America’s biggest corruption scandal after pleading guilty in 2016 to bribing officials in more than a dozen countries to win public works contracts.

Last week, Toledo asked the court to let him serve his sentence at home as he battles cancer.

“Please let me get well or die at home,” he said.

The sentence was announced in a room in a small prison in Lima where Toledo has been incarcerated since last year.

Former President Pedro Castillo is also being held there as he faces “insurrection” charges after trying to dissolve Congress in 2022.

Two other former presidents, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Olanta Humala, are also under investigation in the Odebrecht case.

Toledo, who was known as a shoe shiner as a child, was arrested in the United States in 2019 after Peruvian officials requested his extradition.

Prosecutors relied on the testimony of Jorge Barata, a former Odebrecht executive, and Josef Maiman, a former Toledo collaborator who said Toledo took bribes.

The former president signed the road construction contract with Odebrecht, although construction of the road took place during the two subsequent administrations.